Wednesday 18th October - Military Service (1916-1923) Pensions Collection.

The Military Service (1916-1923) Pensions Project will release 5,000 new files on the 24th of October 2017. The files, which relate to claims lodged by 1,576 individuals, or by their dependents, contain new and unique information on the revolutionary period.

The new files include:

300 claims lodged by women who were active during the War of Independence and Civil War.

343 IRA Civil War casualties.

66 individuals executed during the Civil War

352 claims lodged by dependants of deceased participants.

5 veterans of Easter Week

510 applications for service (either pre-Truce or War of Independence and Civil War - IRA and National Army).

The release brings the number of files available online to approximately 20,000.

The Military Service (1916-1923) Pensions Collection (MSPC) project is a joint Department of Defence and Defence Forces contribution to the Decade of Centenaries. The project is mandated to release the files and records of the Department of Defence dealing with the service of members of the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Citizen Army, the Hibernian Rifles, Cumann na mBan, Na Fianna Éireann and the Irish Republican Army from the period April 1916 to the 30th of September 1923. This involves cataloguing and digitising nearly 300,000 files. There have been four releases of information from the Collection to date since 2014, the fifth release is planned for 24th October 2017.

The MSP Collection is significant in many ways. It is unique in quantity. With more than 250,000 records, it is much larger than any other archival collection covering the period from the Rising to the end of the Civil War. The quality of the information contained in the files is captivating and multi-faceted. This is not just about the administration of pension money: topics like military operations, social and family conditions, welfare history and politics are all present throughout the files.

It is also a significant collection because it presents a variety of unknown or forgotten identities caught in a momentous context in Irish History. The work of preserving archives and making them available has been be vital in our deepened understanding of the Rising.